


The Longest Road

by Deejaymil



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: (they succeed eventually), A Ridiculous Wedding, And then a much less ridiculous one to follow, Drabble Sequence, M/M, Prompt Fic, Romance, Strict Word Limits, Two unmitigated disasters attempting to fall in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-06-14 10:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 6,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15386835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: They're taking the longest road to get there, but in the end it doesn't matter, Maybe what they are to each other has always been inevitable.





	1. Old Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> Updates thrice weekly: Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Saturdays.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Your character sees/interacts with something from their childhood and it stirs up old feelings._
> 
> _300 Words._

One minute, he’s a recently separated man with enough brains to know that this is a terrible idea—the next, he’s stumbling drunk through a park wondering how this is his life. There’s a warm hand on his arm and, when he looks down, he’s dressed to impress with his shoes streaked from the wet grass they’re tripping over. The hand isn’t slim or dainty; instead, it’s long with slight callouses on one finger where it would rest upon a trigger. There’s a watch looped strangely over the arm of his suit and his nails are blunt and clean. It’s a nice hand. It’s not a woman’s hand.

“Careful,” Spencer says quietly as Hotch stumbles over the edge of the lawn. “You should have told me about Haley.”

Rossi, Hotch remembers. Rossi did this. Got him drunk and… this. Just all of this.

What is this?

“Didn’t tell anyone,” Hotch replies, looking around. Where are they? There’s a rotunda ahead—Hotch recognises it. He remembers why he’s here, and why Spencer is here with him. Spencer right now, not Reid, because Hotch would never call Reid in the middle of the night because he’s drunk off his ass in the park where he got his first kiss. “Didn’t think it was… professional.”

And he’s looking at that rotunda with some distant point of his mind pointing out that it’s not really professional that he’s summoned the prettiest, and least equipped to deal with breakdowns, member of his team to the park where Hotch had kissed his best friend at the tender age of eighteen.  Not Haley. It wasn’t Haley.

And hadn’t she always hated that he’d kissed a man first?

“Come on,” is all Spencer says, his hand still steady, still there, even now Haley isn’t. “Let’s get you home.”


	2. Lonely Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Character A has found the perfect gift to show Character B how much they love them._
> 
> _500 Words._

One minute, Hotch is this inaccessible man with walls around him built of a suit and tie and decidedly closed office door; the next, he’s asleep on Reid’s couch with his tie looped over the armrest and his arms curled around his chest like he’s trying to hide all the hurt of the world inside. Reid’s seen enough of the broken-hearted to know that this isn’t that—but he hasn’t seen enough of what this actually _is_ to understand why it was his number, not Rossi’s or JJ’s or anyone else in the world’s, that Hotch called for help.

Reid doesn’t even know where he _lives_.

Lingering awkwardly by his desk behind the couch, Reid picks his way through paperwork, at first, then annotates a book just because it’s something other than paying attention to the measured breathing reminding him that he’s not alone in his sanctum. And maybe that’s what’s freaking him out the most. He hasn’t lived in this apartment that long, not really—only six months now, since he finally felt comfortable enough in his work to move somewhere less ‘temporary’. There are still boxes packed against one wall, things he hasn’t found the time or motivation to unpack. That’s never mattered before because he’s never once invited another person into the apartment to see them. Until now.

Completely puzzled and definitely out of his depth, Reid gives up the pretence of working and slips off to bed. He’s awake all night, listening for noises and wondering just _why_.

By the morning, he has a plan.

 

* * *

 

“What’s this?” asks Hotch, staring at the Tupperware container Reid has placed on his desk. It’s not an unexpected outcome of this encounter, and that’s probably entirely because Reid’s vividly aware that he’s done this in the most painfully awkward way possible. Instead of knocking at Hotch’s office door to announce his presence, he’d leaned in, waved his hand, and peeped, “Hi!” And then, instead of asking if Hotch was busy, he’d stood there holding the container and looking shifty.

Instead of answering the question now, he just shrugs, waves his hands around in a strange pantomime of a square—his intellect has abandoned him and left him with his only communicative resource as being interpretive dance—and then pops the lid.

“It’s lunch,” he manages to croak out as Hotch stares down at the chocolate and vanilla brownies Reid had carefully baked for just this purpose the night before. “Uh. I thought maybe, if you wanted, we could… share.”

Hotch stares at the muffins, then at Reid, who’s possibly incorrectly profiled that what Hotch is ailing from isn’t being broken-hearted; it’s just good, old-fashioned loneliness. And if that isn’t something that Reid knows intimately, nothing is, even if he’s not used to seeing it in the self-assured.

But the shyest smile flickers on those usually straight-faced lips, and Hotch says, “That would be lovely, thank you.”

It’s the first breath Reid takes all day.

It’s also the start of something.


	3. Something Fleeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _A single candle burning in the dark. A moment of meditation and introspection._
> 
> _100 Words._

The power goes out. Reid produces a candle from nowhere and they work together in the darkened hotel, everyone else long asleep except for the workaholic and the insomniac. It’s in the flickering glow of that candle that it happens; Hotch looks up from the autopsy report and sees nothing different about the man in front of him, except for _something_. The way the light plays on his mouth or the way his lips open when he’s deep in thought, maybe. It’s something, for sure, and Hotch, bizarrely, wonders how to kiss him.

It’s not fleeting.

He thinks it again.


	4. Too Late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Conflict is the spice of life, and there is one your character has been avoiding._
> 
> _300 Words._

This is a mistake, almost certainly, but Hotch is determined that it finally needs to happen. He’s picked a restaurant that recognises he’s left this too late while also indicating he’s trying, and they’re having the worst dinner of his life thus far while trying not to tackle the elephant in the room.

He breaks first.

“You’re not wearing your wedding ring,” he points out, fingers too tight around the stem of his wine glass. Haley just looks at him with _that_ expression, her own fingers tap tap tapping on the tabletop.

“Neither are you,” she says coolly, which is less accurate than it seems. He’s not wearing it right now, but he had up until this night—until it had occurred to him that, really, there’s nothing much sadder than turning up still wearing the ring like he has a hope of turning back time. “Why are we here, Aaron?”

That does it, there’s a spark of anger then.

“I thought we should talk.”

But that’s not accurate, is it? He _doesn’t_ think they should talk. He thinks the time for talking was before she’d had him served at work in front of his colleagues and in front of Reid, whose pitying/startled expression feels like it’s seared into the fabric of Hotch’s memory forevermore.

“We could have talked months ago,” she snaps, catching the waiter’s attention and gesturing to her glass. “Before you chose the work over _me_.”

“You knew who I was when you married me…”

But she laughs softly and with no warmth in the sound. “When they call, you go running. When I call, you let voicemail answer.”

With painful awareness of the situation, his phone rings. He doesn’t bother apologising as he checks the number: _S. Reid Calling._

“Go on,” she challenges him. “Answer it.”


	5. Nothing Happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Absolutely nothing interesting is happening at all. Nothing._
> 
> _500 Words._

Nothing is happening. That’s what Reid keeps telling himself. Nothing is happening, except the thing that _is_. The thing they’re both pretending isn’t. The thing that can’t be taken back and isn’t something Reid thinks he’d take back even if he had the option of doing so. Considering it’s been an evening of nothing happening, except for the things that _are_ , it’s not surprising that this is just another surprisingly unsurprising thing.

It’s a weekend off, throwing them home alone into their own private sanctums. Reid’s has never felt as empty as it does this day, as he’d wondered if Hotch was going to call again, if their now-daily lunches mean anything to the other man, if anything is meant by the way they look at each other now… or if it’s just his overactive imagination taking his loneliness and running with it. Isolation is nature’s greatest aphrodisiac, after all, and as he stares blankly at a documentary on birds, watching the captive lyres weaving nests despite having no mated pair, he’s never emphasised more with something outside of his genus.

When there’s a knock, it’s nothing unusual. People knock on doors. That’s what people do, and then people answer those knocks. Reid keeps telling himself over and over that everything that happens is normal and usual and nothing, really, not in the grand scheme of things. It’s the only way he can stop his anxiety over this being _something_ from ruining it all. And he continues doing this, even as Hotch greets him with that same shy smile, asking to come in. Even as it’s revealed that Hotch is here for no reason in particular, just wondering if he wants to ‘hang out.’

Even as they watch the lyrebird documentary together, saying nothing and hyperaware of the other’s presence. Reid’s too tongue-tied to ask if he wants to do anything else and he suspects that Hotch is too polite to mention it. The couch they’re on was old when Reid had bought it, the cushions sagging in and pushing them together. Knee to knee and thigh on thigh, Reid’s hand dangerously close to Hotch’s on his knee. They’re touching. It’s nothing.

It’s absolutely, definitely something.

“Want me to cook?” Reid blurts out instead of, “I want to kiss you.” “I mean, dinner, want me to cook… dinner. With me. Here.”

“That would be nice,” Hotch answers with the same forced politeness. Reid nods, twice, then staggers off.

What the hell is happening?

He feels punch-drunk and confused, despite nothing having happened. Despite nothing _happening_ , as they eat a hasty dinner together on the same sagging couch, their plates balanced on their knees like they’re back in college. The documentary finishes, as does the food, and Reid washes up without a word, Hotch coming up to help him without asking. They work in silence, Hotch’s fingers brushing Reid’s every time he hands him a plate.

All Reid has to say is, “Please.” But he doesn’t, and nothing happens.

Yet.


	6. Scar Tissue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It is a scene of immeasurable, world appropriate, beauty that moves your characters. Describe it and how it makes your characters feel, but you cannot use the words heard, felt, saw, tasted, or smelled—or any permutation of them._
> 
> _300 Words._

It might be macabre, but Hotch has never been quite as swayed by nature as he is when he takes a walk to clear his head and finds the path he’s walking along thickly forested and woven through with fingers of fog that give the whole place a kind of ethereal air. He’s worn out and carved thin. Another day, another case, and, despite having always been aware that there’s never going to be an end to them, it wears on him today.

Silently, he stands in the fog and lets it surround him, appreciating how it dulls the world and hides all the rough edges of it. What’s out there in this forest but creatures hurting creatures, of which humans are no different… his work has proven that.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” says Reid from behind him. Hotch’s shields are down and he knows the man knows this too, shivering in the chill and wondering if the path they’re on is as inevitable as it seems, the way ahead bumpy and rough and paved with both of their insecurities and miseries.

But a hand touches his arm, those same fingers that’d held him up all those months ago doing so again now. There are differences. No wedding ring on his finger, for one. No hesitation in Spencer’s hand, for another.

And, this time, Hotch slips his arm free and takes the hand that’s offered. There’s nothing around him, not the trees or the fog or the cloudy sky above laying trails of dew on the ferns surrounding, that’s as captivating to him as their fingers entwined. Those callouses on his. The work has marked them both, in their fingers and their eyes. When Hotch looks at Reid, he sees the same scar tissue there.

Not even the fog masks it.


	7. Unmitigated Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s a date! But something goes wrong… and then something else… things are just really not going well at all._
> 
> _400 Words._

Neither really asks the other on their first date. Baked lunches in Hotch’s office become casual dinners at Reid’s house, which turns into this: them talking about his divorce in a restaurant that’s far nicer than ‘just friends’ requires with Reid looking at him like he knows there’s an underlying motive to his gentle questioning.

When Reid probes with a gentle, “How are you?” in reference to the divorce, Hotch is pretty sure what he actually means is, “Reassure me I’m not a rebound,” or possibly even, “Show me this isn’t a mistake.” The first, Hotch can do. The second, he’s not completely convinced of himself.

They’re both terrified and showing it. Hotch shows it in his stifled responses, too blunt for politeness and too forced to settle Reid’s sharpened nerves. Reid shows it seemingly by losing all control of his limbs, knocking over his wine glass twice before asking for just water, which he drops into his lap. When he returns from the bathroom, patted dry with his cheeks flushed red and eyes shiny-bright, Hotch dignifies his return by not bringing it up.

When dinner is over, they go for a walk. It rains, torrentially, the kind of cold, icy rain that they can’t even pretend to enjoy. No cab stops to pick them up and Reid starts coughing hoarsely before they make it to a bus shelter. Hotch gives him his coat too, noting that the man is barely talking anymore, looking anywhere but at Hotch’s eyes. This is a disaster; he wants to crawl up somewhere warm and pretend it never happened.

Going to Hotch’s is a mistake, because there are still signs of Haley everywhere. Seated awkwardly at his kitchen table drinking coffee—without milk, because it had apparently gone off since Hotch had last checked, the perils of work like theirs—they avoid making eye-contact, with Hotch wincing every time Reid masks a sneeze.

“Perhaps we should call it a night,” he admits finally, sure that this is the end of whatever they’ve begun, and even surer when Reid agrees, sloping to the door and barely saying goodbye, his cheeks still red and his eyes even brighter. They don’t kiss, and his phone is silent in the hours between then and bed.

Hotch doesn’t sleep at all that night, just lies awake and wonders if they’re over before they’d even had the chance to begin.


	8. Dying Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Character A is about to face one of their greatest fears with Character B by their side._
> 
> _100 Words._

Hotch isn’t Reid: he’s not afraid of the dark. He’s not Emily, scared of loving another. He’s not Rossi, who fears being obsolete. And, despite what George Foyet might think, Hotch also isn’t scared of him. Not of him, or his knife, or his veiled threats towards Hotch’s body and person.

But he does fear dying alone.

When Hotch opens his eyes after in the loud silence of his hospital room, there’s a hand in his and it’s a grip that’s just as scarred as his is with all his rough edges.

He’s not alone.

And he also doesn’t die.


	9. Shields Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Your characters are off to their favourite celebration! Is it a party? A festival? Just the day they met their lover?_
> 
> _400 Words._

They don’t talk again until Halloween at Rossi’s place. Reid’s more nervous than the event warrants. But after Foyet’s attack, and his own injured knee, and the date before that that they’d never had the chance to talk through…

With all that on his mind, he forgoes wearing a blatant costume, instead trading his wig for a suit that’s every bit the shield against the world that Hotch’s is. He hopes no one profiles him, aware that they’re absolutely going to.

And they do.

He’s barely five steps in the door and Emily is pressing wine into his hand, despite him reminding her he can’t drink while on the light painkillers for his knee. Another five steps and JJ has taken his arm and led him, crutches and all, to the couch to settle him there with a pile of cushions and his wine confiscated. Rossi then takes one look at him and, on purpose, Reid is sure, works to keep Hotch away from him all night.

It doesn’t work.

Reid looks up from a book Morgan’s thrown at him to find Hotch lingering overhead, his eyes on Reid’s knee. It’s ridiculous, really, that the outward signs of their injuries have healed so unevenly. Looking at Hotch right now, Reid can’t even tell that he was hurt—looking at Reid, everyone can see his vulnerabilities.

“We should talk—” Hotch stammers out, his own hand around a glass of water that trembles like he’s shaking.

“About the date—” Reid says at the same time, before wincing. Like the date is important when there’s Foyet, and Haley…

Silence. Laughter floats in from the other room, an orange and black streamer drifting in through the door on a wayward breeze. Reid normally loves Halloween, but this one is up there on his worst.

“Do you want to leave?” Hotch asks suddenly, putting the glass down on a coaster and fixing Reid with a stare that reminds him of all the reasons he’d agreed to the date in the first place. “So we can… talk.”

Feeling hot and woozy, and not all because of his knee, Reid nods, taking Hotch’s hand and letting himself be pulled up. He staggers, just a little, almost putting weight on his knee—but Hotch catches him, letting him balance against him, his breath warm on Reid’s ear.

Everyone sees them leave together, but they don’t care.


	10. Sweet n’ Sour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Something takes your characters completely out of their comfort zone. A camping trip, moving to a new place, attending a conference with hundreds of strangers, a feast at the palace when they’ve never been before. Be creative! Whatever it is, it’s new. Is it exciting? Is it uncomfortable? Let us know!_
> 
> _500 Words._

They end up at a fast food place smack bang in the centre of what feels like the world’s largest kid’s party. Hotch isn’t sure how they got here, or why; all he knows is that, whoever the kid whose party this is _is_ , they’re spoiled as hell and with more friends than he’s ever had. It’s a weird feeling to resent a seven-year-old, but he’s also just a little on edge.

“I was sick,” Spencer says suddenly as a cheese fry whizzes by his ear, fidgeting nervously on the shiny hamburger-shaped stool he’s propped on. His crutches keep sliding on the tiled floor, Hotch forced to sit beside him instead of across from him in order to protect his leg from hyper-active pre-teens slamming into it. It makes it harder to gauge his expression, although Hotch can see the worry written across his features as he babbles on, “The night of the date, our date, that, uh, night… I was sick, and I didn’t want to cancel even though I should have, and I was sick _before_ the date, and I guess that helped it go… how it did.” He finishes, fingers coated in the white flakes of the napkin he’s shredded, and finally meets Hotch’s eyes.

Hotch, who has no idea how to express the bubble of hope/realisation/ _something_ that’s welled up at these words, just nods gravely even though he’s in a McDonald’s Café area with his elbow on a tacky plastic tray and his sleeve dangerously close to a pool of sweet ‘n sour sauce. It’s not really the place for ‘stoic’, but he doesn’t know how to be anything but.

“You were there,” he says finally, his voice husky and low enough that he knows Spencer can barely hear him. “When I woke up… you were there, despite that.” He gestures to the knee, of which he has a morbid fascination with, at the same time repelled by the notion of such catastrophic damage being done to one of his team members while he was unable to protect them. “I… thank you.”

What he needs to say is “that’s important to me,” but he doesn’t know how.

“Is that all you want to say?” Spencer asks, flinging Hotch right back into deeply uncomfortable, away from the well-worn shores of stoic. “I don’t know, I feel like we’re dancing around each other—I don’t want to do that. Not after… Foyet. Or that.” That is the knee again. “We could have died, and we would have died feeling terrible about a date that wasn’t that bad, really.”

Hotch swallows, watching the kids. They’re dressed for Halloween, much like they aren’t, and he wonders if Reid had a costume he’d decided not to wear.

He decides to be uncomfortable. “Do you want to try again?”

Reid smiles, eating a fry and wincing because it’s cold. “Sure. But maybe anywhere but here.”

They go back to Spencer’s, which isn’t a mistake—because all they have there is each other.


	11. A Hitch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Hello! Someone’s family (or family by choice) just showed up on short notice—or no notice at all—and they want to stay a while. Use internal monologue liberally to tell us how they feel about it._
> 
> _400 Words._

They go back to Reid’s place and there’s very little that’s coy about it this time. There’s none of the miserable awkwardness of their first date, some kind of new sharp-tinged understanding between them of what’s going to happen tonight. Reid is vividly aware that they’ve chosen to go somewhere private for a reason—and that they’re avoiding the mistakes of their first date in order to assist with the completion of that reason.

But there’s a hitch.

They get to Reid’s and there’s, of all people, a very drunk Ethan on his doorstep. Reid’s not sure how he got there, or why, all he knows is that he’s barely up the stairs when there Ethan is, tumbling back down towards them with a gleefully shouted, “Spencer!” that’s slurred and giddy. They’re lucky Hotch is there to help catch him, because the sudden weight around Reid’s neck sends his crutches skittering out from under him and almost ends this night in the ER.

Despite it taking both of them to get Ethan into the apartment, Reid manages not to look Hotch in the eye the entire time, even when Ethan pronounces them absolute best friends and kisses Reid firmly on the corner of the mouth to cement that proclamation. Reid knows he was aiming for his cheek and drunkenly missed, and he knows the arms around him don’t mean anything and neither does the sudden drunk showing up—but he’s also aware how this looks on the outside peeking in, and that has his cheeks flaming and his brain concocting a million excuses a minute.

_He’s just a friend_ , is true, if cliché. _He’s always been just a friend,_ is a downright lie that Reid won’t attempt, because he knows just by a sly glance at Hotch that the man can tell how attracted to Ethan Reid still is. First loves die hard. _Don’t go, he’ll be asleep soon,_ is another, but Reid won’t voice that either—it’s selfish and assumes that he still has a chance getting Hotch into his bed, which seems unlikely with his ex now snoring on the couch.

But Hotch surprises him again, twitching the blanket neater over Ethan and smiling just a little, saying in a soft voice, “How about we go to your room?” instead of anything crueller.

Too glad to say how relieved he is for this chance, Reid nods, and follows.


	12. Puzzle Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Describe something your character loves in detail, using metaphor._
> 
> _200 words._

For the following three hours, their night goes like this: perfect. They both learn something new about each other, and it has nothing to do with Foyet or Haley or the man now snoring on Reid’s couch.

They learn that maybe this really was inevitable.

They don’t have sex, but they don’t really need to. Reid realises that he loves the hidden sides of Hotch just as much as he loves the man he sees every day, even if it’s taken them this long just to find each other. Fully clothed and stretched out beside each other, he loves the way that Hotch is like a weapon; dangerous and beautiful and with a trigger just waiting for Reid to curl against it.

Hotch loves the way that Reid is like a puzzle, his body lined with hidden edges ready to snap into place if only Hotch finds the right way to touch him. In the end, he’ll have something perfect and complete, even if at the moment they’re too new to each other to work it out.

He wonders if this is it: a chance at happiness.

Reid suspects, as much as he fears being wrong, that it might be.


	13. Happy News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Write Character A’s observations and ruminations on character B while Character B is out having some much-needed fun. Is Character A in love with Character B? Do they dislike them? Does seeing them in this situation give them new insight on the other character? Does it make them happy, or angry?_
> 
> _300 Words._

Ethan is an old college friend, Spencer tells Hotch as they lie in bed, using the voice that means ‘I had sex with that person’. Far from being repelled, Hotch is fascinated, because the man on the couch is everything Hotch isn’t—but their slow exploration of each other over the last three hours in Spencer’s bed have proven that Spencer wants him, even if just physically and right now. Vividly, he remembers high school and the night he’d kissed his best friend in the rotunda at the park, how alive and in love he’d felt. He wonders if kissing Spencer would be the same.

He wonders if Ethan and Spencer ever felt like that.

Ethan adds to this wondering by waking up, falling off the couch and sending Spencer scurrying—as much as he _can_ scurry—out there. Sober enough now and trying to coax Spencer into a celebratory dance, the crutches having not quite registered yet.

“My friend, my _friend_ ,” Ethan continues, looking at Hotch and adding a ‘my friend’ for him too. “Guess what?!”

“You’re an idiot,” Spencer grumbles, looking at Hotch too with his mouth in a fond kind of smile and his hair all ruffled.

“Yes, but also, guess _what.”_ Without waiting for an answer, Ethan charges on, hollering, “I’m getting married!” and having his own dance by himself around the confines of Reid’s book-strewn coffee table. “And you’re best man!”

Not for a second does Spencer look jealous, or unhappy. Instead, he whoops along with his friend, hugging him tight and almost dancing, despite the bandages on his knee—and it’s in that heartbeat of nothing but happiness for each other that Hotch realises: if he’s not in love with this man he hasn’t even had a chance to kiss, he will be soon.


	14. The ‘But’

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s morning. Ugh. And your character has woken up on the wrong side of the bed and there is a hitch in the morning routine._
> 
> _300 Words._

Reid wakes up the next morning to a headache and Aaron no longer beside him. For a moment, he’s resigned, because when do good things ever last in his life? It’s almost a relief to know it had all been some glorious, wishful dream that he’d almost thrown himself dangerously into, a knot binding tight in his chest—then he hears voices from the kitchen and _remembers._

He hurries out, finding Ethan scrambling eggs while Aaron drinks coffee. Their eyes meet in that moment, a smile crinkling the lines around Aaron’s even though it doesn’t touch his tired mouth—a real smile. The knot unravels, and Spencer smiles back.

“So,” Ethan announces, turning with the frying pan and grinning at him. “I don’t remember but I’m sure I yelled something of the sort at you—did you actually agree to being best man?”

“No.” Spencer rubs his head, wincing at the ache. He wants aspirin and coffee and his kitchen to be quiet again, even though he’d normally be overjoyed to have two people he loves in the same space. “You were drunk. I didn’t know if you were serious.”

“Oh, I was, and am,” Ethan says cheerfully. Spencer narrows his eyes at him, waiting for the ‘but’. There’s always a ‘but’ with Ethan—and he’s cooking eggs, which means this one is a big one. Bigger even than him coming between Spencer and an _actual_ night with Aaron. “But you should answer now, now that I’m sober and making you breakfast. It’s only polite, right, Aaron?”

Aaron just raises his eyebrows and sips at his mug.

“Yes, of course,” says Spencer.

“Oh good,” says Ethan, “because the wedding is in twelve hours.”

Spencer sighs, reaching for the aspirin and only smiling a little at Aaron choking on his coffee.


	15. Very Ethan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Weddings are full of emotions both good and bad. Character A finds themselves in the position of having to help Character B handle their emotions either at the wedding or at the reception after._
> 
> _500 Words._

This whole thing is a level of catastrophic Hotch can’t imagine willingly involving himself in. A wedding like this, spur of the moment, last minute, and absolutely without sense or reason? It’s madness.

It’s, as Spencer tells him guiltily afterwards, _very_ Ethan.

Maybe that’s why Hotch agrees to go, or maybe it’s because he’s a little curious as to just how badly this night is going to pan out. There’s a little bit of a voyeur in him—that little bit also points out quite smugly that Spencer will be in a three-piece suit, and that will sure be nice.

The majority of him, raised polite, pretends that part doesn’t exist.

Despite this, he ends up at the strangest wedding of his life. The bride is a tiny thing barely five feet tall and just as exuberant as Ethan is. They apparently met at a local jazz club’s miniature pony showing eleven months prior, which are two Venn diagrams that Hotch—before tonight—would have never believed had any overlap.

Most surprisingly, they seem happy together, which the cynic in him—a louder voice than the voyeur—says won’t last. He hopes he’s wrong, especially as he watches Spencer, acting as both Ethan’s witness and his ring-bearer, magic the rings out of Ethan’s ear to a general chuckle from the twelve people gathered there—only five of which know either the bride or groom. Two of them Ethan met on the metro to Spencer’s, and another two were just passing by.

“This is insane,” Hotch tells Spencer after, as they follow the now-married couple down the street to a bar which has agreed to host the reception. Spencer, with a surprisingly show of festival spirit, just slings his arm through Hotch’s and regales him on the history of the wedding, right until it’s almost time for him to give his best man’s speech to the—now smaller group than before—wedding party, and he vanishes.

Because the smile has slipped from Ethan’s face for the first time that night, and because he doesn’t _actually_ want this madness to end badly, Hotch goes looking. Spencer’s not hard to find. He’s sitting in the smoking garden by himself, staring at his hands and looking worried.

“Ethan’s married,” he says suddenly, still staring at his hands. Hotch looks too, seeing nothing but the scars he loves, the fingers that have held him steady. “He’s moving very quickly… it could go terribly. I can’t do this. I can’t condone this.”

“Bit late now,” Hotch reminds him gently, kneeling by his side and seeing him flinch. “Are you worried about him, or us?” It’s a fair question: Spencer’s now looking at his hands, one finger in particular. “You’re not Ethan. And you’re not Haley. And we’re not a mistake.”

Spencer nods slowly, lips moving wordlessly as he repeats that to himself.

“I can do this,” he says.

“We can do this,” Hotch corrects, before leading him back inside to do his duty to his friend.


	16. A Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Two people. One bed. A LOT of pillows._
> 
> _500 Words._

They stumble home that night very drunk and also very aware of what’s to come. If Spencer hadn’t been sure what way the night was going, he is after Hotch pushes him up against the wall of his apartment building and curls tight against him, lips barely touching and eyes closed, his breath wine-soaked and his expression fraught.

“What are you doing?” Spencer asks him, feeling hands on either side of his hips and a knee slipping between his legs. It’s somehow coy and forward all at once, and his head spins with the juxtaposition.

“Trying to kiss you,” is the blurry response. “But I’m scared of doing it wrong.”

So Spencer kisses him first. Slow and deep and with everything they’ve been leading up to laced in the movement. First a touch of lips, gentle. Teasing. Then sharper, needier, his hands going from loose at his side to bunched in the shirt of the man against him, pulling him tight so that there’s absolutely _nothing_ coy about the leg between his anymore.

“Aaron,” gasps Spencer when he breaks apart to breathe, getting nothing but a rough exhale of air from the other man. “Come to bed, now. _Now.”_

“I thought we’d never get here,” Aaron responds with a half-smile—which is accurate, if pessimistic.

Neither of them remember the space in-between there and what comes next.

Spencer’s bed is big and empty in the way a bed feels when only one side has been used for any decent length of time. Aaron seems to recognise that, rolling them both onto the unused side and claiming it for himself as he finds Spencer’s mouth over and over. They should talk—they need to talk—but it feels like all their words have been bound up in the countless snapshot moments leading to this one. What’s left to say except each other’s names?

There are too many pillows, Spencer thinks. He’s filled all the empty spaces in this bed with pillows to burrow into—not the decorative ones used on couches to be thrown aside, but actual pillows that he can attempt to smother himself in nightly to hide how much space in his life is left over, but right now they’re nothing but in the way. All the space beside him is set aside for Aaron; all the space aside and within, as they find something neither has had in a while—something Aaron left behind with Haley all that time ago, and something Spencer’s always missed about Ethan.

“I never told you why I called you that night,” Aaron says suddenly, stopping mid-kiss to stare at Spencer as he says this, his lips red and eyes wide.

“Why?” Spencer can barely think to ask, but he also needs to know.

“Because,” Aaron murmurs, ducking low to Spencer’s throat, his chest, his heart. “I wanted a chance to fall in love with you.”

Spencer blinks. Processes that.

Asks, “Did you find it?”

All he gets in return is a smile.


	17. Sanity Prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What does this morning’s sunrise mean to your character?_
> 
> _100 Words._

When this morning comes, it brings something different. They’re still awake. With swollen mouths and wide eyes and bodies that are less drunk that they were but still not sober, Aaron has his fingers gripping Spencer’s tight and Spencer is hanging on to his sanity by the barest slip of his hand. Grip tight on the bed railing, body arched, and Aaron is whispering his name like a prayer. It’s a night that’s been three years coming and Spencer’s other hand finds every mark Foyet left on the man astride him.

If this sunrise means anything, it’s not being lonely.


	18. Killing Foyet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Death comes to all one day. How does your character feel about death? What do they believe?_
> 
> _300 Words._

Three months after the night of Ethan’s wedding, Foyet returns. The day is soaked in blood.

But the only person who dies is Foyet.

After it ends, Hotch isn’t sure how he feels. He’s sitting in his office, feeling hollow. Haley is safe. Foyet is dead—killed by a shot from Spencer’s gun after the man had gone after Hotch’s ex-wife to try and prove a point. It’s not a point Hotch is sure would have worked anyway. Killing Haley would have hurt him, sure, because it’s a reminder of how dangerous his work, and he himself, is to everyone around him—but it also cements his realisation that what he’s doing with Spencer, what they’ve been doing for months now, is absolutely not a mistake. This life can’t hurt those who are already within it, willingly within it—those would who burn happily if it meant upholding the oath they took to their country.

And Spencer had faced and monster for him, and lived.

A soft knock at his door announces the man, slipping inside and closing the door before walking over to Hotch. He doesn’t sit, just watches Hotch carefully, his cane in one hand.

“Are you okay?” That’s a question without an answer, so Hotch says nothing. “He’s dead, Aaron. It’s over.”

“If Foyet had really wanted to hurt me, he would have gone after you,” Hotch says finally.

“But he didn’t,” Spencer says. “He just couldn’t conceive that your life has continued beyond the dissolution of your marriage—to him, you’re as static and frozen as he was. Your moving on never occurred to him.”

Hotch looks at him. No one died today—no one who matters. Just a monster.

“Am I moving on?” he wonders out loud.

“You are,” Spencer promises him. “We both are.”


	19. Dark Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s time for the terrible, horrible, no good, really bad day. Thank goodness someone is there to talk about it at the end._
> 
> _400 words._

That day ends. It takes its time about it. Despite the hope of the dark times being behind them, the adrenaline of the rush to save Haley’s life lingers. Before Aaron can go home, there’s paperwork to fill and Strauss to face.

There’s Haley. The conversation with her isn’t easy, not even a little. She’s angry—rightfully—and lashing out at everyone around her—unjustifiable. He walks in on her airing the sharp side of her tongue on a battered looking Reid and puts a stop to that immediately. By the time he’s done informing her of that, he’s barely in the mood to be at all soothing about the fact that she _did_ face something horrendous today, something traumatising.

That doesn’t stop him driving her home to Jessica’s and offering to stay the night if they need someone there to feel safe. Maybe it’s that offer that does it—he actually watches her frosty anger melt before him, something familiar and almost nostalgic taking its place.

Despite that, they decline his offer, and he’s glad.

The day ends. He drives home in the dusky twilight and finds himself driving straight past his silent apartment building where a cold, silent condo waits for him. Much like Spencer, his home is filled with unpacked boxes, and there’s no comfort there as the adrenaline fades and leaves him nothing but tired. It’s been a terrible day, and he can tell it might just be a terrible night—and that’s probably why he ends up finding himself trudging up Spencer’s stairs, finding the man already waiting.

“I didn’t…” Hotch begins, trailing off without knowing the words to explain not wanting to be alone while also wanting nothing but.

“I know,” replies Spencer. Without questioning him further, he holds his front door open. Within, Hotch can see empty boxes and stacks of books—he’s unpacking.

Finally.

“Do you need a hand with that?” asks Hotch, who is now a bone-deep kind of tired but sure the physical demand will be good for him anyway. But Spencer just shakes his head and takes his hand, like he has so many times before.

When he leads Aaron to the sagging couch, Aaron goes without complaint. After a day like today… all he wants is someone to hold him. And that’s what he finally finds. Foyet couldn’t touch this, and now he never will.

The day ends.


	20. The End.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Your character is making music. Whether with singing or instruments, alone or with a group, to an audience or to an empty room, how do they perform? What song do they choose? How does the music make them feel?_

Spencer’s playing the piano. That’s shocking enough that Hotch has to stop and stare, watching those hands dance across the keys with a surety that’s as stunning to see as his hand on Hotch’s arm had been all those years ago. They’re older now, sober like Hotch hadn’t been then, and still made of just as much scar tissue—but those hands are still captivating like they’ve always been. Even more so when they’re creating a song of no name that Hotch knows, Spencer’s eyes shut like he’s learned this tune from rote despite Hotch having never seen him play before.

The music is slow and fast all at once, complex and simple. It feels like two sides of the same coin, like two men dancing around the same sphere of space waiting for their equilibrium to slow and let them fall together. It feels like a drunk night in a park and a reckless wedding. It feels like all the almosts and every ‘finally’ that had followed those. It’s their first kiss that they had, and it’s their last kiss they haven’t met yet, and Hotch wonders how Spencer learned to put into music what they’ve never managed to put into words.

“Ethan taught me,” Spencer says suddenly, his voice shocking in the silence that follows those hands falling still.

“When?”

And Spencer smiles, turning in his chair to face Hotch, hands coming to rest on the knees of his finest suit. “The day I asked him to return the favour,” he says, eyes shy in this second as he touches, for the last time, the bare skin of his ring finger. “He seemed to think I could wow you with it if you got cold feet at the last minute. Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see me before the ceremony?”

Hotch just laughs. He doesn’t believe in bad luck.

Instead, he reaches for his soon-to-be—within the next two hours—husband’s hand, much like he plans to reach for it for the rest of his life, and leads him out of that room to the fading memory of the music he’d been playing.

**Author's Note:**

> I love to hear from you guys. Leave a comment or come chat with us on the [Criminal Minds Discord server](https://discord.gg/kPxKjaE) (don't be shy by how quiet we are--we love new people to talk to!). I also run weekly rewatch threads both on the server and over at the /r/[criminalminds on Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/criminalminds/), so come along and join in the small community there. Hope to see some new faces!


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